Aspirations of a Time Lord
by Chunkydumb
Summary: What happened when the Doctor abandoned Clara in Deep Breath? Where did he go in the TARDIS? Who did he see? Why did he change the colour of the Console Room? How did he choose his new outfit? How does he come to terms with his new face, and his distinctive past. How can he prove to Clara he is the same man? He needs help from an old friend, who has missed him dearly.
1. Chapter 1 - Recollections and Memoirs

"I fear we have missed him."

The TARDIS and its owner had abandoned Clara, leaving her alone and so very afraid in a place she could barely comprehend living in. _Her_ Doctor would never do that! Surely? She glanced at Jenny and Vastra who stared back at her equally dazed, then, she took one look at that Victorian sky and knew he would never come back.

The TARDIS purred therapeutically as the Doctor slipped down one of its many tendrils stretching from the central column. He removed his damp, tramp coat as he went and was left in nothing more than a nightie when he was finished undressing.

He didn't look back, just ahead. It was clear the man needed to clear his head, remember who he was. Not just for himself, but for Clara too. Although was there any real motive in him going back?

Taking a deep breath, he turned left down another corridor and then a right until he paused solitary in place. Almost as if he regretted his decision, he turned back swivelling on his heels and proceeded down the same corridor he had just been down. Retracing his steps the Doctor came to a door, one that had clearly not been opened for a while as it screeched a cacophony when he turned the handle. The Doctor appeared reluctant to enter but passed the dusty threshold all the same.

Lining the walls of the room were countless numbers of clothes, hundreds and hundreds all crammed together on coat hangers or folded disgracefully on the floor, the Doctor sighed and started ahead, he passed the first floor and spiralled up to the second. Oddly counting the roundels on the walls as he went, fondling his grey locks simultaneously.

On the second level, apart from further clothes, was a door. A wooden door that was so incongruous with the rest of the room it stood out like a sore thumb, but yet, seemed so invisible too. Its facade was embossed in countless Gallifreyan symbols and markings that moulded into a pattern among themselves as the Time Lord approached, vines strained across the walls by it and no clothes lay or stood near it. It stood solitary in its place, and was daunting to the Doctor as he grew ever nearer.

He opened the door as he took one final step.

The room he now stood in was lit in a dark, soothing shade. More roundels were on the walls like the rest of the ship, but these were more of a dying pink blush. A perpetual sunset contained into small magical lights on the wall. Coating the walls in their own individual spots were more outfits, memoirs, collectibles, odd trinkets, odds and ends. On a sleek copper shelf to his right, many metal sticks lay. On the far left one looked like a small pen light, its shaft a cold silver metal. Another device next to it was more advanced, a long silver handle with a round red tip with a bullet head on its end. More lay next to that, all different in their demeanour, finishing with a more modern device, a bronze and silver shaft ending in a green glowing tip that extended upward. The Doctor smiled as he removed it from its place and played with it in his hands. He rolled it between his fingertips, judging it and remembering how to use it and the memories that belonged in it.

The Doctor carried on about the room, device in hand, that he recalled giving the name: sonic screwdriver. He passed Van Gogh paintings, Einstein theories, more Gallifreyan writing which he now could read after remembering how to.

After a complex reboot in his new set of regenerations, the Doctor felt himself coming back. He could remember everything again, every face, every memory, every planet and every star. Every companion, everyone he loved. Everyone he lost.

And it consumed him, transported him, taking him back to everything he had adored, lost, and recovered from. He recalled his home, his first trip in the TARDIS. Susan. Barbara and Ian.

Companion after companion, friend after friend. Some he lost, some he dropped off, and they all shared part of his hearts.

Pushing all the dark memories and nightmares from his head. And dismissing the happy recollections, he started off again. Coming finally to the back wall of the room, where twelve garments stood. All his previous attires. From the grumpy old man, to the awfully long scarf (which he had grown out of, of course), all the way to the converse and trench coat, and the bow tie and tweed.

All himself. That would never change.


	2. Chapter 2 - New Clothing and New Ideas

Once an extensive period of time ended, the Doctor left the room after cramming his head full with familiarities and showered, releasing himself of his awful stench and doing his hair in what he thought was fashionably stylish. He now stood on the third floor of the widespread wardrobe and was filtering through a chest of shirts, pulling out mustard coloured button downs and blue polo's unable to find his perfect match. He spun around and headed for a nearby mirror, yet again he scanned himself. Adjusting to the new face and judging his sense of style.

"Simple." He murmured, staring at himself deeply, almost unapprovingly.

He slid across the landing, still counting the roundels and took a pair of navy, relatively tight fit, trousers in hand from a hanger nearby. Feeling the material he nodded and slipped them on, moving backward and forward about the room, debating where to go next, his eyes landed upon a coat in the corner. It was sleek and slim fitting, resembling that of a Crombie coat on Earth. Folded, surprisingly neatly next to it was a plain, long collared, white shirt, "Simple." He repeated, taking the shirt in hand. Nonchalantly, one by one he did the buttons up, leaving the collar open and facing upwards, encompassing his pale neckline, he then reached for the Crombie, held it out in front of him and then placing it across his chest like you would in a shop in front of a mirror. "Melancholy." He said, smiling. He put the coat on, but then again debated it. He removed the coat, and turned down one of the many railing about him.

He followed it down decisively until he reached an area identical to the last, except this room was adorned with a large glass flooring, unveiling the floor below in a spectacular fashion. Lights flooded in from all around the ceiling, ricocheting off the glass, and reverberating to every corner and crevasse. The Doctor stood in his noir trousers, and white shirt with the Crombie flung over his back, he frowned with his attack eyebrows and licked his lips subconsciously. He then sprinted across the crystallised glass to a Victorian style tea chest that was on the other side of the room. He pried it open ferociously with his hands and pulled out a cardigan.

The cardigan was a matching shade to the Crombie Coat and corresponded with his shirt and trousers completely. He put it on, doing up every button but the last. Then, he positioned the Crombie on top. The Doctor curved to a mirror perpendicular to him, arbitrating himself once more, the collar troubled him, it was still undone facing upward to his neck.

Launching himself back into the tea chest he removed multiple items of neckwear. Ties, bowties, scarfs and cravats. Immediately he tossed the scarf away shouting: "No thank you!" He then glanced at the boisterous cravat in his left hand. He tossed that away too. After more and more minutes slipped away, he was left with one bowtie in his hand. Sighing an almighty sigh, and looking upon the tie with immense sentimentality he folded it, and putted it neatly back in the box.

Next, he did up the collar and folded it downward. Once done, he grabbed some sturdy matching boots, beheld himself, looked up and down in the mirror, grinned, and left.

Despite the hasty trials of locating novel clothes, and deciding upon an outfit, the Doctor's mind was still swarming with images of Clara, and her adamance to not accept his new face. How could he prove to her that t was still him?

He needed advice. And he knew exactly where to go.


	3. Chapter 3 - A Change of Console

Before he could get any form of advice or guidance, the Doctor needed one more thing. The man was new, the outfit was fresh, but the console room. Not so much. Time for a change of scenery.

The Doctor found himself once more at the console of his predecessor's design, after leaving the close to derelict wardrobe. He quickened his pace as he started up the stairs from the lower decks to the circular platform in the centre housing the control hub itself. "I need books." He murmured as he tapped away at the controls, "I'm older… I need to act it," he started spinning a dial and pulling himself to the next panel, "give me knowledge I can't refuse."

Upon this, the room warped to his tones, the walls became disfigured for a few moments washing around like paint on a tray when you blend two colours together. Then the walls focused once more into a new design. At symmetrical parts of the upper levels of the console, dark embossed wooden bookcases appeared. Each altering sizes, some reached taller than a person and some cases caused you to squat to reach any of the volumes. But each were filled to the brim with books, all hardback and neatly bound. All with beautiful leather cases, some with dustcovers and bookmarks. Some lay on their side, some piled, some resting back on back across the shelves and some were left open at certain pages of interest. Adjoining these bookshelves were a couple of chalkboards, coupled with chalk, gracefully compressed against the walls at every interval. Beneath one of the cases stood a large brown leather armchair, with its own allocated spot by one set of stairs leading to the console itself. Settling himself in, the Doctor hauled himself some books and placed them on a side table close to the chair. He flicked open his coat to divulge the deep red lining beneath. "Oh, I like that," he whispered, not noticing the interior lining beforehand in the wardrobe, "intriguing colour."

He set himself deep inside the chair, with a book in hand and peeling open the first page. He got through the first chapter with immense difficulty, if he strained his eyes anymore he would need glasses. Snapping the book shut, and removing himself from his comfy position in the chair, the Doctor headed for the console. "I can't see…" he purred, waving his fingers in front of his face, "Well, I can see that."

"Lights!" He bellowed, his Scottish tenors drowning out all din the pulsating time machine was emanating. He strolled round to the panel closest to the door and twisted a knob precariously, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves." He muttered. Yet again the console warped, but not the walls this time, the lights. The console itself remained identical, but its ambience transformed drastically when the Time Lord was finished. Beginning as cyan blue, the Doctor scrolled through pinks, purples, reds and yellows, eventually deciding on a burnt orange hue for the entire room. The time rotor was that same orange, and looked gloriously beautiful as it moved up and down, up and downs in its place. Even the roundels had changed to the orange colour, but he did wish he had more of those about the walls. Perhaps he could add more now? No, there are more pressing matter to be seen to he thought as he did his Crombie up.

Clutching to the console of his new orange control room the Doctor beamed, he grinned a smile superior than any he had done so far with this new frown ridden face.

"Take me where I need to go, old girl."


	4. Chapter 4 - A Well Needed Best Friend

_Author's Note: Thank you all so much for your continuous support and love for this ongoing story. Not long left now in this one, but fear not! More 12__th__ Doctor and Clara stories will be coming ASAP! So watch this space! (Never saying that again.) I'd like to thank, for this chapter in particular, the beautiful short comic book 'Fade Away' written by Paul Hanley for inspiration and copying! Thank you all again! _

The idiosyncratic whirr of the TARDIS filled the well-trimmed courtyard it materialised into. Trees bustled, flower beds trembled and cobblestones shook. But after a flickering moment. Silence once more. The familiar Blue Box now stood in a quaintly pruned distinctively English, courtyard. The Doctor could tell by the potent odour as he abandoned the threshold of the machine. The gardens were equipped with glossy white benches, well-maintained timber bandstands and flower beds dotted in four corners, although, the actual perimeter of the place was no larger than a house.

He crossed the marble footpath to the building that beheld the garden, pondering constantly why the TARDIS had brought him here.

Reaching the door to the building, the Doctor knocked sheepishly but in an intriguing pattern to entertain himself while he waited.

In less than seconds, the door opened, a hand dragged him through, pushed him down carpeted, white walled corridors and halted him calmly outside a door. Having no time to look around, study his surroundings drastically or even catch a glimpse at the owner of the hand the Doctor did what he does best, and improvised. He opened the door and stepped inside.

It took the Doctor seconds to comprehend the man inside.

"Well this is just getting ridiculous," Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart said as the Doctor stood gawking. He was sat on a cream armchair by a large window to the left, he adjusted his stance in the chair and reached out a hand for the Doctor to take, "Hello Doctor." He intoned, smiling at the Time Lord reminiscently.

The Doctor gladly took it, smiling himself. He took an identical chair opposite the Brigadier and flicked his coat open for comfort. "How did you know it was me?" The Doctor catechized looking intently about the spacious room, eyebrows raised. He could tell the Brig was being looked after well. The bed to their right had been recently made and the furniture and adornments polished vigorously. The décor itself was not the Doctor's taste however, a blend of creams and pinks, doyleys lay atop most furnishings and floral landscape paintings were scattered abysmally about the walls.

"Oh. You know, Officers eye for detail and all that," He answered, immediately noticing the Doctor's wandering glances, "I know. It's hideous, but they treat me well. And I'm at peace. No more field work for me if that's what you're after." He chuckled softly, though in seconds it distorted into a hoarse cough. The Brigadier let the ordeal play out and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief once it had subsided

He peered upward to find the Doctor gazing anxiously. He chuckled again, "Old age Doctor, it comes to the best of us." He spurted.

The Doctor didn't know how to reply, so simply nodded his head in agreement. They sat in comfortable silence for minutes listening to the birds outside. The Doctor looking sympathetically at the Brigadier while stroking his chin, and the Brigadier simply looking intently out the window at the blossoming pink trees and growing dandelion patches.

The Doctor understood why the TARDIS had brought him here. He took the loss of the Brigadier hard in his last incarnation, and rightly so, but now he was sitting in front of the same man. A man he saw as dead, the curse of a Time Lord panning out once more. This was his opportunity to have once last talk with one his closest friends, and he wouldn't pass it up. When he heard of the news, he had no time to mourn, or time to even accept the loss. At least this time Alistair wouldn't pour an undrunk glass of brandy waiting for his arrival. No more loose ends, no more lost visits to friends. Old and new.

"You wouldn't just pop in Doctor, what do you need?" The Brigadier's gaze was still fixed on the scenery below

"Advice."

"Advice?"

"How do I express regret...? Compensate for a mistake?"

The Brigadier shifted his incessant gaze to the alien in front of him. He couldn't identify if the Doctor was being frivolous or genuinely serious. But he answered earnestly all the same, "You accept the mistake."

"Dark times ahead, Brigadier." The Doctor admitted inhaling, letting Alistair's answer filter through, but not answering it directly.

"You're impossibly frustrating. Do you realise that...? But you know what I think," He adjusted his flat cap and ruffled his beard as he thought of his reply, "I think you're going to come through it. Whatever it is. Like you always do. Although that's not why you're here tonight," the Doctor didn't acknowledge what he was referring to, so he carried swiftly on, "I know a firing squad when I see one."

"What?" The Time Lord fiddled ceaselessly with his new grey locks, still unable to accept its shortness in length.

"You know, you broke Ms. Grant's heart. You were everything to her. And 40 years later, she's still waiting for the tiniest bit of acknowledgement from you." Alistair slid slowly up in his chair and indicated a hand to the wall behind the Doctor. A wall the Time Lord hadn't noticed previously. It was covered in black and white photos of friends from the past. Mostly from the Doctor's UNIT days, landscape photos of the Doctor and Jo, one of Benton, Sarah Jane and Harry Sullivan. All framed, and neat. The Brigadier continued as if on a vendetta, "You should take a look at this wall sometime. Harry, Liz, Benton, _you_ abandon us. And, this is my turn isn't it?" He paused for air, clearly struggling for it, "One day, it'll be poor Sarah Jane's turn. And whatever, poor, unfortunate youngster you have travelling with you now… One day, it'll be their turn too."

"You'll see me again." The Doctor lied, fruitlessly, aiming to redeem himself. Pathetically.

"But _you _won't see _me_. I'm _not _a complete _dunderhead_ Doctor- I understood you perfectly. From where _you're _sitting, all our days are in the past… And damn you, I just don't understand why!" He barked the final words like he was commanding orders to UNIT soldiers. It took the Doctor aback significantly. But he was right, Spot on in fact.

"Neither do I, Brigadier." The Doctor rebounded adjusting his Crombie, obviously accepting his friend's rowdy, but honest analysis.

Overlooking the Doctor, the Brigadier carried on upon his unintentional monologue, "You're not that long-lived. You can spend every day of _your_ life in every one of _ours. _You don't have to be so pathetically lonely you know… You have friends Doctor. And do you know something… You're the very best of mine."

The Doctor noticed Alistair's hip flask laid on its side on the table across from him. He'd been drinking. "No more for you. Okay?" His attack eyebrows elevated aggressively, but his smirking smile out shone them.

They sat in another silence, this one a little less comfortable as the Doctor tried desperately to figure out his response. After minutes he found it, now he had to release the words into a coherent sentence not an incoherent blabber. "Alistair… You are one of my…" Oh. Good start. "What I mean is-"

"You're not going to try saluting me like you did with that Warkeeper's Crown business are you? Because if you are, I'd rather just die now." The two laughed together, like they would on the not-so-rare occasion in the past. Then, the Doctor rose, left his chair, and accepted what to do with Clara.

The Brigadier understood the Doctor always had somewhere to go, and people to see, but he did ever so wish this meeting could go on for so much longer.

The Doctor bowed his head to the Brigadier as he got to the door and he looked into his friends eyes for what he knew, would be the last time. And part of him knew that the Brigadier understood that too. "Goodbye, Brigadier." The Doctor said, doing the top button on his coat.

"Cheers." Alistair said, raising a wrinkled, frail hand to his head, in as close to a salute as he could manage. And on that, the Doctor slipped away, out the door, past the woman he supposed dragged him in, and out the entrance. Out across the garden and then finally to the TARDIS, and inevitably… Clara. He took one last glance at the window he guessed was the Brigadiers and then… He left. In silence.

"Till the next time. Doctor."


End file.
